CYPRESS STRING QUARTET: BEETHOVEN QUARTET OPUS 130 WITH GROSSE FUGE

Beethoven Quartet Opus 130 with Grosse Fuge

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130, “Liebquartett,” with Grosse Fuge

Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro
Presto
Andante con moto – ma non troppo
Alla danza tedesca: Allegro assai
Cavatina: Adagio molto espressivo
Grosse Fuge: Overtura – Allegro – Fuga

Beethoven String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130, “Liebquartett,” with Grosse Fuge

Beethoven spent the last two years of his life focused almost exclusively on the writing of his final string quartets. His Quartet in B-Flat, Opus 130, was completed in November 1825, only one year after his Ninth Symphony. The quartet was dedicated to Nikolai Galitzin, a Russian nobleman and amateur cellist, and was premiered by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in March 1826. 

Opus 130 is unusual among quartets in that it is written in six movements. The six follow the standard cycle of movements seen in many symphonies and quartets: opening/introduction, dance movement, slow movement and finale. However, in this exceptional quartet, Beethoven gives us two dance movements and two slow movements with the following structure: introduction, dance movement, slow movement, dance movement, slow movement, finale.  The “extra” two movements have become some of Beethoven’s best known and most adored quartet movements: the Cavatina and the Alla danza tedesca.

The first movement has been described as a “serious and heavy-going Introduction,” and Beethoven wanted to balance this on the other end with a formidable fugue, known as the Grosse Fuge. Like so many other great works, the fugue was ahead of its time. While the Grosse Fuge is now recognized as a masterwork of string quartet literature, early audiences heard it with confusion and disdain. Critics dismissed the work as “repellent” or “indecipherable,” and one even went so far as to say that the work was as ‘incomprehensible as Chinese,’ but the fugue has gained appreciation and is now considered among Beethoven’s greatest achievements. The fugue proved to be incredibly demanding for performers (not to mention unpopular with audiences in its early days), and Beethoven’s publisher, Matthias Artaria, convinced the composer to replace the ending, stating that the "public" was demanding the fugue as a separate piece. Artaria paid Beethoven for a transcription of the ‘Great Fugue’ for piano, four-hands, and then paid him an additional fee to replace the ending of Op. 130 with a movement “more fitting the overall feeling of the piece.” The composer, much to the surprise of anyone familiar with his stubborn personality, acquiesced, and wrote a more traditional finale movement to replace the massive fugue. So, the Grosse Fuge (in quartet form) gained its own opus number, published as Opus 133 just a few months after Beethoven’s death in 1827. Today the Op. 130 Quartet is performed with either ending: the fugue or the lighter finale replacement.

The Quartet’s subtitle, “Liebquartett” (“Dear Quartet”) is how Beethoven referred to the piece in his conversations books. When writing about the quartet, Beethoven knowingly stated, “Art demands of us that we don’t stand still.”